


Stammi Vicino, Non Te Ne Andare

by Erushi



Category: Yuri!!! on Ice (Anime)
Genre: Day Two: Travelling, M/M, Post-Season/Series 01, Victuuri Week, Yuuri prompt: Long distance & reunion
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-02-08
Updated: 2017-02-08
Packaged: 2018-09-22 20:28:21
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,431
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9624146
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Erushi/pseuds/Erushi
Summary: There are nowspacesin his apartment. When he finally slumps into bed, the mattress suddenly feels too wide, the sheets too cold, and the other pillow beside him still dips in the centre with the memory of someone else’s head.---Or: The one in which Yuuri is away and Victor pines.





	

**Author's Note:**

> _"Stay close to me, don't go."_ \-- Translated from "Stay Close to Me".

“It’s only for for three days,” Yuuri tells him on the drive across Pulkovskoe Highway. “Three days – barely long enough for you to miss me.”

Yuuri says it with all the reassurance in the world, but Victor knows better. He sulks a little as he trails Yuuri into the domestic terminal of Pulkovo Airport, and sighs often enough, world-weary and heavy, that Yuuri pauses in the middle of the check-in line to coax his pout away with a quick press of lips and a clever flick of tongue. It works, for a little while, until they arrive at the security gate. Victor hands Yuuri his carry-on bag before reeling Yuuri in for another kiss, and sneaks a quick grope of Yuuri’s ass for good measure too, because three days is a long time, no matter what Yuuri says.

“Be good,” Yuuri murmurs as he pulls away, the fleeting whisper of a final kiss. Victor is left watching as Yuuri hands his passport and boarding pass over for inspection, while the rest of the day yawns wide and perilously empty at his feet.

He returns to their shared apartment, and lingers only long enough to put on his running things and to collect Makkachin before he flees back into the weak morning sunlight. He runs with Makkachin to the rink, really _runs_ , and doesn’t stop for breath until he reaches his destination. By then, Makkachin is a panting but happy heap, and Victor’s quads and calves are warm and pleasantly sore.

He stops by a vending machine on his way into the training centre, and puts in enough money for two sports drinks before he remembers. He buys just one, collects his change and takes his drink with him to the break room, where he fills a bowl with water for Makkachin. There’s a sunbeam slanting across the top of one of the Formica tables, painting the white surface a pale, straw yellow and throwing everything else in a soft shadow. On impulse, he places his drink in the middle of the beam. In the light, the printed design on the drink bottle gleams bright and over-saturated, almost lurid.

Victor leans back and takes a photo, carefully angled and composed to capture the colours and contrasts. In the background, Makkachin sprawls half-under the table, lapping at its water eagerly. He studies the resulting picture for a while longer. Then, satisfied, he opens his messaging app and sends it to Yuuri.

 _Had a good run. Practice next! :)_ , he adds. He doesn’t receive a reply immediately, but he’s not expecting one either. By his own estimate, Yuuri’s flight will only have just begun its descent into Moscow right about now.

With a sigh, Victor closes the app and finishes his drink. He calls Makkachin to him as he heads for the ice.

He warms up with a desultory step sequence and a couple of jumps, before throwing himself into his free skating program for the European Championships. He’s still not entirely pleased with his transitions, and there’s the matter of the quad Axel, which he isn’t landing well enough in practice to be even remotely satisfied with.

He’s pushing himself, he knows: There are approximately six weeks between the Grand Prix Final and the European Championships, and the crowd would be forgiving if he used one of his older programs, stayed with his usual arsenal of jumps, what with him having taken the Grand Prix season off and all.  But he wishes to surprise them, to surprise Yakov, to surprise _Yuuri_ – and the lure of presenting a new quad at his age, when most competitive skaters have long retired, is irresistible.

It’s almost two hours later when he glides back to the side of the rink. There’s a message for him on his phone, Yuuri telling him that Moscow is much greyer than Piter. (Of course it is, Victor snorts, and smiles a little at Yuuri’s use of the local name for their city.) Yuuri also suggests that Victor shares the morning’s picture, which Victor promptly does. His post appears above Yuuri’s latest post on his newsfeed: Moscow’s skyline as seen from the bank of Moskva River. Yuuri has captioned his picture in three languages, all conveying the same thing: that he’s pleased to be in Moscow, and looks forward to being a judge and guest performer at an inter-school figure-skating competition. His Russian is more stilted than his English and Japanese, the grammar slightly askew. Victor imagines Yuuri frowning in concentration at the screen of his phone as he carefully thumbs the words into a translation app, and grins against the rush of fondness that threatens to overwhelm him.

Lunchtime is quiet without Yuuri to second-guess Victor’s choices. In the end, Victor opts for a tiny café that has just recently opened around the corner from the training centre. He chooses it partly because its lovely owner doesn’t mind Makkachin sitting with Victor at one of the outdoor tables, but mostly because Victor hasn’t been to this particular café with Yuuri yet, and the empty chair on the other side of his table isn’t _empty_. He orders a bowl of borscht, and a serving of beef stroganoff with salad and mash that comes in a dish bigger than Victor’s face. He flicks his picture-sharing app open and uploads a picture of his lunch. _May need some help finishing this_ , he types beneath it, hesitating a little before tagging Yuuri too.

The afternoon brings with it more practice at the rink, this time under Yakov’s watchful eye. Victor suffers a lecture on the sloppiness of his free leg, another on the positioning of his arms as he curves out of his combination spin into a layback Ina Bauer, and runs through his short program for the European Championships over and over again until Yakov grudgingly declares that he satisfied.

There’s still nothing from Yuuri on his phone. It’s not entirely surprising, as the inter-school competition would have started more than an hour ago. Victor swallows his disappointment, and begins instead to stretch out.

It’s not, he reflects, that he begrudges Yuuri having his participation in the event. The exposure Yuuri will receive, however small, will still be another step towards landing the sponsorships and brand endorsements every competitive skater needs to fund their career, all the more when the skater is as new to Russia as Yuuri is.

Exhaling, Victor folds forward at his hips to grab at the arches of his feet. There’s a moment of resistance, his hamstrings still tight from the exertion, before his muscles relax and he sinks into the stretch, his body a neat pike, his chest pressed against his thighs.

No – he thinks as he sits up again, spreads his legs in a wide straddle before pushing forward once more, this time into a pancake stretch, chest to the ground – he doesn’t begrudge Yuuri his time in Moscow. Rather, it’s the fact that he can’t follow Yuuri to Moscow which he objects to, the event too close to the European Championships for him to take any time off. (Not that he hadn’t tried, but Yakov and Yuuri had been adamant, traitorous conspirators both. Beside him, Makkachin whines his agreement.) It’s the fact that he’s stretching on his own at the rinkside, listening to Yako’s voluble critique of Georgi’s form, when on other days he’d have Yuuri with him, hands pressing between Victor’s shoulder blades and knees digging into the small of Victor’s back as he pushes Victor even deeper into the stretch.

His phone buzzes: Yuuri has commented on his captioned lunch with a flexed bicep emoji.

Victor grins as he rolls out of his stretch, shaking out on leg and then the other to ease his hip flexors. He’s still grinning as he lopes of to the gym, and smiles all the way through three sets of inclined crunches even though they leave his abs sore.

That night, he joins Mila and their other female rink-mates for dinner after he drops Makkachin back at his apartment. Georgi comes along too, his attempt at wooing his current date still in the early, tentative stages yet. They a homely diner that’s apparently all the rage right now on social media, order _golubtsi_ and beef _kotletki_ and proceed to stuff their weight in stuffed cabbage rolls and meatballs smothered in sour cream. A bottle of vodka to share soon follows, shots tossed back with careless abandon as the stories grow more outrageous with every round.

Victor eats too much and probably drinks too much. He certainly stays out much later than he usually does, and he knows as he stumbles out into the night with his rink-mates, just _knows_ with the stubborn lucidity of the inebriated, that it’s all because there are now _spaces_ in his apartment.

The spaces confront him as he finally staggers back into the apartment, as stark as they had been earlier that morning: the half-drunk mug of green tea on the kitchen counter, the Japanese novel draped over the arm of the sofa at pages 134 and 135. A coat is missing from the coat stand, and a toothbrush from the holder in the bathroom sink. There are cushions still strewn on the floor, kicked off the couch just the night before amidst more pleasurable pursuits. And when he finally slumps into bed, the mattress suddenly feels too wide, the sheets too cold, and the other pillow beside him still dips in the centre with the memory of someone else’s head.

For a while, he tries to sleep in the middle of the bed instead, buries his face in the other pillow and just _inhales_. It’s still not quite enough, however, even when Makkachin clambers up to curl up on the blankets beside him. Another hour goes by before he gives up, groping blindly for his phone on the nightstand. He draws the blankets over his head as he brings up the now-famous video of Yuuri’s first skate to _Stay Close to Me_ on the screen.

It seems to work. By the first minute of his third re-watch, his eyelids feel noticeably heavier. Just once more, he thinks, pillowing his head on his arm, when his screen shifts to show an incoming call.

“Sorry, did I wake you?” Yuuri’s voice is hesitant, sleep-soft and unsure, and Victor sighs as the last of the day’s tension bleeds from his shoulders.

“No, you didn’t,” he reassures. “Was awake,” he adds as an afterthought.

Yuuri huffs a quiet laugh over the phone. “Can’t seem to fall asleep.”

“Neither can I,” confesses Victor, smiling softly into the dim stillness of the bedroom.

“I saw Mila’s picture of dinner,” Yuuri says. “Looks like everyone had fun.”

Victor hums absently. “Food was good. Remind me to take you there some day.” He tells Yuuri about Georgi’s latest courtship, and follows up with a blow-by-blow retelling of the unfortunate incident that afternoon in the break room involving a faulty toaster oven and an over-enthusiastic smoke alarm. In turn, Yuuri tells him about Moscow, about the opening speech he had to give before the competition and the skaters he had judged. He tells Victor about the evening’s rehearsal for his guest performance the next day, and at some point, Victor manages to drift off.

The next morning, he wakes feeling out of sorts, which he blames on the hangover (never let it be said that Russian women can’t hold their vodka), but there’s one to chide him for leaving crumbs in the butter, and he washes his breakfast things afterwards even though it’s not actually his day to do the dishes. He feeds Makkachin, then takes them both out for their customary morning run Overhead, the winter sky is an endless blue, a rarity in cloudy St Petersburg. He pauses long enough to take a picture, and sends it to Yuuri with a hasty _Good morning_.

Yuuri responds an hour later with a _good morning_ of his own and a shot of his makeshift changing room at the Moscow rink, his costume for his _Yuri on Ice_ program hanging from a coat hook. Victor replies with a _:D_ emoji and a thumbs up, and finishes lacing up his skates with a smile.

His day at the rink progresses much as it did the day before. Yuri accosts him at lunchtime, and insists that Victor accompanies him to a new bakery that’s four districts away. They buy a bag of freshly-baked _pirozkhi_ back to the rink to share, and the stuffed buns are good enough that Yakov only grumbles mildly even though their lunchtime expedition results in Yuri being almost fifteen minutes late to his coaching session. (In fact, Yakov grumbles so little that Victor will later wonder if Yakov may have put Yuri up to it: _Victor’s turning into a lovesick fool while that Japanese Yuuri is away. Give him some_ pirozkhi _, for heaven’s sake, before he gets as bad as Georgi._ ) In the evening, he buys a packet of two-bite brownies, which he resolutely eats in one bite; and a box of takeaway sushi, which leaves him curiously unsatisfied even though he finishes all of it without anyone fighting him for the _unagi_ and avocado rolls.

That night, he doesn’t even bother trying the bed: nicks Yuuri’s pillow and curls up on the sofa instead, Makkachin curled up on the floor next to him. It’s not the most ideal as a makeshift bed – for one, it’s just a little too short for Victor’s legs – but it isn’t broad and empty the way in which the Yuuri-shaped space is on their mattress, and Victor figures that has to count for _something_. Even so, falling asleep is still remarkably hard, which is why Victor is still awake when their front door opens with a _click_. Light spills in immediately from the common hallway outside.

“Victor?” says Yuuri, blinking owlishly in the doorway.

“Yuuri,” Victor stares. “I thought you were only coming back tomorrow.”

“Mm.” Another _click_ as Yuuri shuts the door again. There’s a pair of muffled _thumps_ as shoes are kicked off, a quiet rustle of clothes being shrugged off and discarded. “The event ended at around six. Didn’t see much of a point in staying on in Moscow after that.” The sofa dips, and a flurry of movement soon follows as Yuuri makes to lie down on the sofa too. Eventually, they settle, bodies pressed together and legs carelessly tangled, Yuuri’s head tucked beneath Victor’s chin.

“Welcome home,” Victor whispers as he closes his eyes, and finally, finally, gives over to sleep.

**Author's Note:**

> In my head, this is set between the first and soon-to-be second season, after Yuuri moves to Russia, but before the European Championships in end-January.
> 
> \---
> 
> tumblr: [erushi](http://erushi.tumblr.com/)
> 
> Feel free to drop by and say hi! :)


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